So if you aren't already aware of my love/hate relationship with wedding planning...I have a love/hate relationship with wedding planning. It's gotten better as I've nailed the big things down and have vowed to plan no more things until I get back from Europe. It's been kind of nice. And I'm quite sure that my facebook friends appreciate it (I have a horrible, atrocious habit of complaining about wedding things on facebook, poor souls). I do try to keep the complaining to a minimum as I refuse to become like one of those girls who update their status with only wedding things, so annoying.
But anyway, I'm digressing...as I love to do. So I saw a post by Style Me Pretty on how they allow you to make a wedding inspiration board. What the heck is that? It basically allows you to put pictures of stuff you like right next to each other to see if you like the overall picture.
"How horribly delightful" I thought upon seeing the post (because I knew I was going to get suckered in). So I spent a half hour of my life creating myself a board, the fanagling you have to do to get your images on the board is rather tedious as I don't think they have all their coding all ironed out, but I made one.
I was surprised to realize I had a lot of details already figured out. I had saved myself a few photos of things I knew I wanted to do, and seeing it all on the board makes everything a whole lot easier. So when I'm deciding on stuff and I'm not sure about it, I'll just whip out the board, compare with what I'm thinking about doing, see if it goes with the overall theme of what I know I'm looking for and voila! Indecisive me turns into a decisive me! Now that's what I'm talking about.
I spent a half hour on the darned thing, feel like I should do something with it. Sooooo I posted it up here for the world to see (aka my mom, I think she's the only one who sometimes reads this thing). So yep. Wedding inspiration board. What a lame name for it.

So last night I became intensely focused (haha only Amanda will get this one) and was working on a paper that was due in 18 hours. Well...mix a little bit of my ADD with that intensity and what do you get? Me, working on a completely different task. Like wedding stuff (I have a love/hate relationship with wedding stuff).
I came to the conclusion that I was going to have to send out save the dates, something I had ruled out earlier for various reasons, one of them mainly being I'm cheap. So why the change of mind?
Well, me and the fiance have a few people that we are going to be inviting that have the memory of a goldfish, so we decided perhaps save the dates is the best way to ensure certain people don't schedule anything else on our "special" day.
So we're doing them. It's settled.

So if you know me, you might be aware that I'm a researcher. I over-research everything. I've already over researched everything regarding save the dates, styles of photography for save-the-dates, and props for save-the-dates. Feeling inspired by my research, I just knew I had to do something cute. Creative. And way cool. (Gotta be the talk of the town, people, it's my life goal.)
Anyway so I spent many days lusting over one of my fiance's graduate school friends engagement photos. I just love those wooden numbers against the railroad tracks. It's so perfect. So amazing. But at 4 bucks a pop, I just couldn't justify it. So what did I do? Inconvenienced other people so that I could get my cute save-the-date props in there. Yep.
So what's the plan...

Well it's going to be a bit of this....

......squished with a little bit of that.
Yeah. It should be horrific by the time I'm done making it but at least it will scare people enough not to forget our date.
We'll just have to see how crafty I am.

Anybody who has a desire to experience low levels of insanity should take up my lifestyle. Work, teach, go abroad, endure graduate school and plan a wedding. Seriously, you will wonder what possessed you. Now I don’t intend to make it all sound like doom and gloom (it is though) there some highlights that make it all worth it (they don’t occur often though) and knowing that I will have crossed some things off my life’s to-do list is quite fulfilling (not really).
Now I can handle a lot of things (at least I think I can). Work, no problem. Teaching, a little scary at first, but I got this. Going abroad, buying a fanny pack (don’t judge), but that’s do-able. Enduring graduate school, we’re testing the limits, but I can pull through (I think). Planning a wedding, I got all this other stuff, should be easy right? ha....ha.....ha.
Planning a wedding is quite the conundrum. Try picking out your colors. I spent two months, perhaps more trying to figure that out.
“Grey and green...with brown!”
“It’s now blue, green and black.”
“That’s just not us....how about just black and white?”
“Pink is an option....I’m not a pink girl, but all the blogs show pink is the thing.”
Most horrifying experience ever. Now what on earth could have been so bad about it, you ask me. Well first off, I’ve come to realize I can be extremely indecisive (don’t worry I’ve warned the fiance about this). Now pair that up with I research too much and become influenced by what I see. Add a dash of knowing that everyone is going to judge you based on your colors and perhaps who you are as a couple and let that bias carry on over into the rest of your life as a couple (I may be exaggerating at this point). Regardless, it’s a tough decision to make. Colors set the tone for your entire wedding. Sort of. And with all the lovely (annoying) wedding blogs that suggest a bazillion different colors, you’re bound to question the color choices you think you’re going to decide on.
Centerpieces. I loathe them. They took as long to decide on as the wedding colors. But somehow they were very important to me. Don’t ask me why. Because I don’t know, but I do know I cared (still do) a great deal about what people were going to be staring at while eating their food. I did resort a few times to throwing a $50 in the middle of the table and calling it a day. I thought it might be interesting to see what would happen if I did that, could make for a great social experiment. Why on earth could these have mattered so much to me? I wanted it to be unique. I wanted people to know we aren’t the ordinary couple that just throws flowers on our tables. I wanted books and candles and flasks, I wanted to impress people with my great creative skill. Clearly I cared too much about what other people thought. Because in all actuality, they will probably barely give the centerpieces a second glance. So I decided on something simple, slightly creative, but above all, something easy (much to the fiance’s delight).
I debated as to telling the world (aka the 4 people who read this blog) my colors and centerpiece ideas, but I’m going to refrain. Why? Because I can. I’m doing this whole wedding thing Kate Middleton style. Secrecy about everything. Of course until I upload the pictures. Then you all are welcome to sell the pictures to the tabloids. Just remember to give me a portion of what you make. 90% percent should be fine.

Note: This was written earlier this morning....just never did hit the 'Publish Post' button.

While doing some research for a paper that is timely due tomorrow, I stumbled across a question posed by Kristen on her blog WanderLust specifically in her ‘About Me’ section. I shall quote her on the whole paragraph as it puts it into perspective:

“In 2009 I started writing again after a 10-year hiatus and realized I’d been a fool to stop. Why do we ever stop doing the things that make us feel alive?”

So why do we? I’d like to think I have an answer to that question. In an effort to continually attempt to revive my ability to blog and post regularly, which hasn’t really happened since I graduated undergrad, I’ve tried many things. I insisted that what makes me feel alive is trying a lot of things, which in part is very true, I do thrive on doing many things at once. But in doing so many things, you let what you thought once made you alive and substitute it for other things. Graduate school was an unfortunate substitution. I’m constantly threatening, to really no one in particular, that I shall quit it. Just up and leave. I haven’t decided if I’m really going to do that, but I suppose I should make up my mind about it sometime soon as I’m due to be done in December. Photography is another more fortunate substitution that I’ve made. I thoroughly enjoy it. Alas, graduate school has overcome my time for that enjoyment. It would seem to the reader that graduate school is the excuse of choice, I wish it were an excuse. Work is another substitution for blogging, one has to live after all. And finally wedding planning. That is a happy substitution, however painful it may sometimes be. I think that we give up the things that make us feel alive because 1.) we think there are other things that make us feel alive, 2.) we get busy with these other things, 3.) we get bored or uninspired and as such feel like we have nothing to contribute. I’ll take all of the above for 300 please.
Even right now as I am primed to pour out my guts onto this little post, I am due to be at work at 10:30, after that I must finish my 10-page paper, which then I must finish reading the last 100 pages of the book that is due for tomorrow, after that I must come up with a lesson plan for my little sophomores tomorrow and grade their speech papers.
Just reading that is self defeating. Regardless, I shall putter on and as I have done in the past I shall yet again pledge to be more diligent on posting. I won’t however say they shall be regular posts about any directed topic, however they will be posts, random and un-timed. Just like my life.